Characters: Orihime, Ichigo, Rukia
Summary
: All her hopes and dreams aren't enough to give it life.
Pairings
: Ichigo x Rukia, onesided Ichigo x Orihime
Warnings/Spoilers
: No spoilers
Timeline
: Pre-chapter 423
Disclaimer
: I don't own Bleach.


This painful twisting is the agony of watching them together and feeling no rage. There is envy, yes, and that only makes her feel more miserable, less significant, less important. She should be strong enough to move past this, but isn't.

Orihime struggles to be happy for them—because they are so obviously happy—and stays out of the way and in the shadows, so her rain clouds don't' rain on them. She's not willing to ill-wish those whom she cares about, even if it would act as a balm to her own abscessed hurts. Selfishness like that is a slippery slope down to her worst impulses, exposed and uncontrolled.

Ichigo and Rukia fit together like puzzle pieces. They're… they're… wedged together. Two people who have been lost from each other for so many untold eons, but finally, after countless lifetimes and recycled souls, have found each other again and picked up right where they left off. Inseparable, at times vitriolic, but always linked at the hip.

And Orihime knows she's been pushed out, before she could ever get in. There's no room for her here.

The connection between them is electric, sending live sparks flying away like little dazzling stars. It's remarkable and even a little frightening at times in its intensity, so obviously alive and sincere. They seem immune, oblivious to it all, but Orihime has eyes unaffected by mental myopia or blinders and she uses them.

Only a matter of time, now.

And what has Orihime's connection with Ichigo ever been? Just a dead wire, chewed through, cut through, corroded, extinguished. Her wild hopes and fantastical dreams aren't enough to give it life if there's no response on the other end.

And Ichigo and Rukia have a life and a light current all their own.